A Valley Without Wind 1 and 2 Dual Pack

Before A Valley Without Wind was released I excitedly emailed Jim to demand we discuss the game verdict-style after he’d told everyone wot he thought. I was bewitched by the idea of exploring the worlds it built and was even determined to be that guy>, the one who actually liked the graphics. Once I read Jim’s words and played for a while myself I realised that we were of similar mind so a verdict would involve us nodding sagely at one another over a decanter of port, occasionally ‘harrumphing’. I couldn’t even make myself like the way it looked, even as an exercise in contrarian lunacy. Version 1.1 promises significant changes though and Arcen might just be on to something.

Updates to A Valley Without Wind have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

* Over 160 new room maps.* 15 new regular enemies* 8 new minibosses* 16 new "elite" enemies (plus the idea of elites at all)* 5 classes of infestations (plus the idea of infestations at all)* A new "craggy highlands" region/biome type.* 8 new music tracks* 5 new classes of player enchants* 3 new player spells* Substantial rebalancement of most player spells.* The ability to give "wait here" orders to NPCs in rescue missions.x* Larger and more intricate continent designs.* Rebalanced and streamlined strategic flow.* No more Civilization Progress (CP) in favor of better mechanics.* One central in-game currency rather than six.* A new "Opal Guardian Store" in settlements.* Loot drops from trash mobs, for use at the opal store.* A better enchant-based system of upgrades in place of upgrade stones.* New Feet enchant slot, splitting out items from the Legs slot.* Streamlined character selection/creation process.* Unique attributes for characters by time period.* More enchant-like unique attributes for every individual character.* Heavily revised and rebalanced existing missions to player feedback.* New Freefall and Boss Delve mission types.* More rewards from doing secret missions.* No penalties/drawbacks from doin world map missions.* More gradual ramp-up in difficulty of the harder mission types.* New spell scroll that you can find and use to turn yourself into tiny t-rex.* A "shopping list" system helping you to keep track of your self-set goals.* Many improvements to the existing planning menu in general.* Smaller, more fun lieutenant towers filled with infestations.* Texture pack support.* Smoother minimap exploration.* More fun and threatening windstorm mechanics.* Many new multiplayer admin commands (largely anti-griefing-related).* Vastly more fun ocean exploration.* Minor continent-wide bonuses from building settlement structures.* Longer durations on continent-wide guardian power scroll uses.* Filtering to the enchants inventory for vastly easier management of many enchants.* Improved elemental strengths/weaknesses for enemies in general.* Much better (completely randomized) elemental strengths/weaknesses for bosses).* 7 new achievements* And much more: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AVWW_-_Post-Launch_Series_1_Release_Notes

A Valley Without Wind fascinates me. Not all the reasons for this fascination are good. But from that (long) moment where I read through our huge two-part interview about Arcen’s intentions for their procedurally-generated open-world exploration-based action adventure, I knew it was something I was going to follow closely. I spent some time dabbling with early versions of the game, and in the past few days I’ve finally been getting stuck into the release version of this strange, 2D post-apocalypse.

While I was playing A Valley Without Wind, someone asked me what I was up to. Here's what I said:

"Well, it's a platformer. I mean, it's not, it's a roguelike. But totally a platformer. Really, it's a dungeon-crawler. It exists for exploration. Well, no, for upgrades. Actually, it's kind of an adventure game. Also there's mining. With magic. And I think I can build a town."

With so many elements pulled together from so many sources, A Valley Without Wind could be either a delicious stew or a horrible lumbering monster of a game. Happily, it's the former.

It is, most certainly, a 2D side-scrolling game with a pioneering attitude. Like many other games, A Valley Without Wind promises right from the start to keep throwing progressively harder challenges at you. But it clearly wants you to succeed, and gives you every possible tool and option to make that happen.

The basic premise is this: you are a hero in a place where there has been a cataclysm, fragmenting time and space. A slice of ancient ruins may lie right up against a slice of the far-flung future. An evil overlord is kicking about, the root of all trouble, and eventually, when you're powerful enough, you can take him down. Getting powerful enough is what will take most of your time.

Every thought of "I'll just give it five more minutes" turned into, "Wait, where did that last hour go?"

While many games that delight in killing off the player character also delight in being monstrously difficult to understand or master, this isn't one of them. (And A Valley Without Wind tells you right up front that your character's death is a matter of when, not if.) It's cheeky and informative, helpful almost to the point of overkill.

It's an incredibly complicated game in some ways, with constant prompts about what you should do and where you should be looking. But all of the information you need is at your fingertips. Maps display both the room you're currently exploring, as well as the dungeon or structure of which it is a part. You can see that the dungeon you're in has been 100% scouted (you've found all the rooms) but only 57% visited (there are bunches of areas you haven't covered, in those rooms). You're tipped off where valuable supplies are, as well as boss monsters.

It also provides guidance, rather than issuing demands. Under "Planning," rather than a dull or uninformative mission log that simply lists tasks, you find a broken out list of items and suggestions that make you more likely to survive, headed under "Things You Should Do." The Planning menu also provides "Big Honkin' Encyclopedia," for those times when you just really need to look something up.

The experience is clearly designed not only to be helpful and perky, but to be highly personal. This is meant to be a game that the player feels personal ownership over, a custom-tailored experience. And custom that experience will be: the maps are procedurally generated, meaning no two regions, dungeons, or continents are ever the exact same.

It's also incredibly dangerous for a player like me, who habitually ventures to the edge of every map and explores every available room. Here in Environ, the final map has no edges. There is always something else to collect and something else to build. Every thought of "I'll just give it five more minutes" turned into, "Wait, where did that last hour go?"

Ultimately, after close to four hours playing I still feel like I've only very barely scratched the merest surface of A Valley Without Wind. The more I played, the less I feel I know what to say about it. And the game, it seems, has me figured out entirely. When I selected "quit to operating system," the confirmation option was, "Yes, I should probably go eat or sleep or something." Yes, yes I should. But I just want to see where the bottom level of this building is...

A Valley Without Wind is available now on Steam and a number of other digital distribution platforms, or DRM-free through the developer's website.

We mentioned just yesterday that Arcen’s open-world side-scroller had appeared on the digital distributions, but since then they’ve also put out a hefty demo. It’s a big old chunk of the game for you to try, with these limitations: “You cannot craft spells higher than tier 2, and you cannot leave the first continent.” I’d definitely recommend trying this – from my time with the beta I’d say that this is both an acquired taste, and also impossible to judge by appearances. Or even, perhaps, from people writing about it. But then I should not be saying that, should I? Send your eyes south of here for the launch trailer. (more…)

A 2D sidescroller without a linear path. An action game with tactical combat and strategic planning. An adventure game that lets you free-roam a vast, procedurally-generated world. A Valley Without Wind defies genre stereotypes. Unlike other procedurally-generated games, you also get a logical progression in difficulty, plus helpful tips and checklists to guide your travels (should you need them).